Scottish politics thread

I’m pissed off at the stuff I read in the Guardian and UK press in general.  It’s really not fit for purpose in terms of informing people what is actually going on in Scotland.

This reads like you only want to read news that fits your narrative, and wish to avoid being challenged on your view.

This reads like you only want to read news that fits your narrative, and wish to avoid being challenged on your view.

For me, it’s not the alternative viewpoint that is the issue it’s either (a) the imbalance and/or (b) the lack of knowledge. TBF the latter is an issue with any “news” type media. Once you know a bit about the subject yourself, the more obvious the errors and misrepresentation are. It’s likely we’ve all experienced that at some point. It’s partly a byproduct of something becoming newsworthy and then being researched hurriedly.

Lack of balance might be caused by the same sort of approach but, though I don’t want to go down the conspiracy rabbit hole, something like Question Time would be a good example of where it’s not even attempted. I’m not just meaning as regards Scotland either.

I’m pissed off at the stuff I read in the Guardian and UK press in general. It’s really not fit for purpose in terms of informing people what is actually going on in Scotland.

Hardly a surprise that the UK press will present a UK-centric view, and since when has it ever been fit for purpose for properly informing people about something? I’m sure you could make the exact opposite argument about the Scotissh press’ presentation of Westminster politics. If it pisses you off then do yourself a favour, stop reading/watching the news and do something more constructive or useful.

I’m sure you could make the exact opposite argument about the Scotissh press’ presentation of Westminster politics.

Not really.

Scottish politics is always influenced by UK politics.  UK politics is seldom influenced by Scottish politics.  When it is it’s only to be used as a scare tactic.  Be careful or the Scottish Marxist government will take all your money or force all your children to be gay every second Tuesday.

You get a range of takes on it from the unionist Scotsman, the indy National, and the Herald trying to keep everyone happy to maximize circulation but only managing to piss everyone off.  But with none of them is it the case that you only hear anything about the goings on at Westminster once every six months or so.

Admittedly there’s not been much on Westminster politics this week but nothing interesting has been happening, has it?  Just the usual announcements of plans to machine gun small boats in the Channel with Spitfires and to introduce a Squid Games style selection criteria for benefits claimants?

UK politics is seldom influenced by Scottish politics.

Or Welsh or Irish politics either beyond the occasional headline. Not a massive surprise, the majority of folks on these islands live in the bottom half of the landmass.

Or Welsh or Irish politics

Indeed, and I don’t know much about Welsh or Irish politics which is why I tend to just listen to these discussions and if I do contribute it’s with questions rather than telling everyone what my opinion is.

A couple of mentions of  “wedge issues”. The problem with these issues is that while some people might regard them as peripheral and a waste of time, they can impact a small group of people quite dramatically. The “trans issue” is a wedge issue that should be stuck on the back burner if you’re Kate Forbes and it’s your life if you’re the parent of a trans kid.

There’s a large groundswell of opinion that PR would solve a lot of our problems in the UK. I reckon Scotland and its incompetent govt and politicians has nicely demonstrated why that would be a very bad idea.

No, there isn’t. Support for PR is pretty much where it always is, and the UK already has PR in NI and Wales and Scotland and London, and we had it in Euro elections before Brexit. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/should-we-change-our-current-british-voting-system?period=5yrs

But in any case, the Green-SNP split is just one event. It doesn’t say anything about PR or coalition politics generally. There’s been 15 years of strong and stable (cough) SNP government under PR. What’s been happening during that in nearby FPTP systems? 😆

Or Welsh or Irish politics

I look forward to our Welsh and Irish member friends starting rolling Welsh and Irish (both sides of the border) politics threads. (Welsh! Politics!) I might learn something…

the electoral system has by design produced an inherently unstable government which can be held to ransom by MSPs in both the SNP and Greens who are pursuing personal agendas and factional fueds.

I don’t think that’s particularly a system issue, it’s not a huge difference in outcome compared to a single party supposedly with one agenda and policies that then collapses in on itself because of factions within the party that don’t agree with each other. The coalition is starting from the end of mainly agreeing but knowing there are issues where compromise and give and take are going to be needed; the single party from ‘total’ agreement breaking down because of the difference. In the end it’s inability to agree on the differences that breaks it down, and that’s down to people rather than the system.

Does entering coalition and knowing you’ll have to compromise make people more likely to be willing to compromise? Does signing up to a party agenda and the whip process make it less likely that people will disagree to the extent we are seeing currently? Or are tories just ****s

The problem is often but not always a belief that a London based correspondent has a better understanding of the issue and can explain it much more clearly than a local correspondent.
Yes I àm looking at you BBC.

Worth noting that in the past 25 years journalism is Scotland has thinned down considerably.  Newspapers and broadcast.  From the culls at the Scotsman in the early part of the century to the almost skeleton staff at Pacific Quay.

This has to have an effect and it can be as hard working things out here as at the other end of the neighbouring country.

Levels of ignorance are noticeable – the selling of the idea that a minority government is a failure, when the system does everything possible to prevent a majority -2011 was a phenomenal fluke which actually relied on the SNP vote coming down slightly to sneak through a gap on the list seat allocation.

There’s a sort of logic in that too. Someone looking in with fresh eyes might do a better job of explaining to an audience unfamiliar with all of the detail than assuming any sort of previous knowledge.

Hardly a surprise that the UK press will present a UK-centric view,

Is it a UK centric view (whatever that would mean) or a London centric view?

Well, yes, some things became free at the point of use, but they were paid for out of taxes (which reduces families’ income)

The taxes of the more affluent.

and/or at the expense of other things. “Free” parking at hospitals is a terrible use of land and other resources, for example: the money spent on providing parking outside the hospital building should have been spent on better healthcare provision inside the building.

I’m not a huge fan of free parking at hospitals.  To be honest it causes as many problems as it solves BUT there is no doubt in my mind that the previous policies unfairly penalised people at times of need.  I can imagine better solutions, but I’m a realist and we won’t instantly get brilliant 24/7 fast, safe public transport, and systems design to help the most needy often cost as much as just helping everyone but leave some genuinely unfortunate people disadvantaged.  Here’s some 100% genuine real life scenarios in “paid hospital parking”:
– when my daughter was born she was in neonatal intensive care for a week, my wife was in high dependency.  It cost me something like £15 a day to visit them.  I could afford to pay that, but I was at that point on SPP so was certainly not feeling rich that month.  Other parents on the ward were not so lucky they were going to be in there for months not days.  Certainly some of them were not middle class IT professionals.  The public transport from my house to that hospital takes 1h 40 m door to door (with no traffic its a 35 min drive sticking under the speed limit).  First service doesn’t arrive till 8:30am, last service back is about 9pm – I’ve a 5 yr old to get to school etc too.  That hospital serves a very large area, other people would find it harder than me.  It was Labour PFI funded building and none of the money from parking went back to the hospital/services.
– five weeks later she was admitted to hospital with suspected meningitis.   I was asked to drive her there, but the GP would have called an ambulance if I didn’t have a car.  She was in for about another week at a different hospital.   I parked in a hurry with my daughter, and ended up paying a penalty as I had overstayed the time limit.  Again I could afford it.  As I queued to pay it, there were cancer and dialysis patients paying to access services every few days.  Perhaps I could have appealed – although the staff said it was unlikely to be accepted; in reality most people who were there probably had a “good reason” why they should not pay on this occassion.  That hospital is only 22 minutes by car, but there is a 55 minute bus journey every two hours.  Its our “local” hospital for routine appointments.  Going by bus takes over half a day.  Going by car takes an hour out your day.
– my brother works in 3 different hospitals in a different part of the UK.  He gets a staff permit at 2 of them, for which he pays – although a permit does not guarantee a space.  The third one, he doesn’t get a permit as he is not in often enough; junior staff who don’t work unsociable hours also don’t qualify for a permit.  When he goes to run his clinic at that hospital his only choices are to pay to park in the visitor car park (which the NHS will nor reimburse) at £8/hr, or park further away and walk/bus in.  Since he’s paid by the NHS for the time he spends travelling between hospitals guess which he does…  now its a bit of an extreme example and niche nuance of working across multiple sites but it doesn’t follow that free car parks detract from patient care.

Any hospital parking solution needs to consider:
– cost to staff who are working odd shifts
– the existing geographic spread of those staff
– how to make sure staff feel safe when commuting
– how to make sure staff on the wards are focussed on care not the time limit on ringo
– demographic of patients
– how not to penalise “regular” hospital users
– that some of the most vulnerable patients are most likely to be regular visitors
– how to make sure someone arriving at A&E or MIU is not delayed or put off seeking help by car parks such that the medical condition becomes harder or more expensive to treat
– hospital locations are increasingly decentralised
– patient transport and similar services have been hugely erroded and patients increasingly rely on friends/family to get then to apointment
– routine scans / tests / clinic appointments should not take a full day – ecconomically its good if people can get back to work.

Some polling suggesting that SNP members prefer Swinney to Forbes, but voters in general the opposite. Assuming a leadership election takes place, we should also get an idea of how many members the SNP now has and whether they’ve started to recover from the massive drop they’d experienced. That might be one very good reason for trying to avoid a leadership election.

the electoral system has by design produced an inherently unstable government which can be held to ransom by MSPs in both the SNP and Greens who are pursuing personal agendas and factional fueds.

I don’t think the system was designed to produce unstable governments, it was designed to avoid any one party having overall control – that is subtely different.  its only when you view life through a westminster prism that you think minority government is fundamentally unstable.  That enhances the personal agenda/factional fueds thing (whether one party or a coallition).  In general what people want is politicians to work together and cooperate on stuff to get things done.  That might be the tories and SNP agreeing on some aspects of one thing, 1/2 the SNP, labour and the greens agreeing on something else; the libdems and snp reforming council tax etc.   The factional divinde down unionist / indy lines is just an artificial construct by politicians.

Is it a UK centric view (whatever that would mean) or a London centric view?

A quick Google shows that both the Guardian’s (and the Telegraph’s for balance) Scottish politics editors both live in Scotland. Brooks (Guardian) lives in Glasgow, Simon Johnson’s bio just has him living in Scotland without more detail. Presumably they both have access to more MSPs than any of us do. Given that they’re writing for a majority English audience, I’m not surprised there’s less nuance though.

I can’t see why anyone argues against free NHS car parks. Aside from a few cases like the Glasgow Royal Infirmary where free parking would be used by people going elsewhere in the city centre.

The cost of building a multisorey carpark must be trivial compared with the other costs of building running a hospital. There is a known demand which can be forecast.

At Gartnavel the introduction of charges led to half empty car parks and nearby residential streets overflowing.

As for public transport. My local A and E is 6 miles away. An hour by bus 20m by car. Forget the bus after 11pm.

I’m looking forward to May 30th when Deputy First Minister Shona Robison presents the Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS).

To quote FAI,

“The 2023 MTFS had a £2.4 billion shortfall in funding built in for 2025-26, and with so much of the £1.5 billion shortfall in 2024-25 being filled by delaying projects, more difficult decisions are likely to be on the way.”

The wilful economic ignorance and whataboutery of the Nats will be laid bare for all to see.

Question – should someone who tables a vote of no confidence in the government (with vast consequences if successful) have to resign if the motion is unsuccessful?

The wilful economic ignorance and whataboutery of the Nats will be laid bare for all to see.

Quite a lot to pick apart in such a short post that doesn’t include any links:

Firstly, the Nats.  I’m wondering what you think the Yes movement has to do with the MTFS?  I assume you mean the SNP led government?  If so, see my earlier point about how people who are sometimes referred to as BritNats (but I would never do such a thing as it’s childish points scoring and really should be beneath anyone who wants to discuss things sensibly) like to conflate two separate questions, ie, ‘Is Independence a good idea?’ and ‘Is the SNP any good as a government?’

Second, given that this is due to willful ignorance, how do we fix this?  Presumably the solution is obvious?

As far as I can tell, this is a 3 point plan similar to the gnomes 3 phase underpants plan:

1. Get rid of the SNP
2. ?
3. Get rich!

It’s step 2 I’m most interested in. In a country that can’t borrow any cash for investment and is restricted to raising taxes for extra funds (which apparently leads to severe traffic jams on the M74) how does it deal with a budget deficit without cutting public services?

“I can’t see why anyone argues against free NHS car parks”

FWIW I know one resident of Scotland who will argue resolutely against anything the Scottish govt does, on principle. It doesn’t matter if it benefits her, or not. If it saves money, or costs. If it’s popular, or unpopular. All that matters is that the Scottish Govt did it, so it must be wrong.

It’s not her team, and that’s all that matters.

It is immensely tedious and I gave up discussing anything political with her some time ago.

In a country that can’t borrow any cash for investment and is restricted to raising taxes for extra funds (which apparently leads to severe traffic jams on the M74) how does it deal with a budget deficit without cutting public services?

Would an Independent Scotland be able to borrow at a reasonable rate?

Well, yes, some things became free at the point of use, but they were paid for out of taxes (which reduces families’ income) and/or at the expense of other things. “Free” parking at hospitals is a terrible use of land and other resources, for example: the money spent on providing parking outside the hospital building should have been spent on better healthcare provision inside the building.

There you go 😀 I know if you looked a bit harder you would be able to accept that the SNP has implemented policies that were successful for their Scottish constituents.

It’s wonderful the doors that open up when you consider acceptance of the facts 😀

But anyway. 🙂

I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly that car parks are a terrible use of land, though here in Scotland, we’ve got quite a lot of it, and thus we dont have to pack them in like sardines in a can. But cost they do and yes I’ll even support your notion that the money could indeed be better used to fund hospital care for the people.

The only fly in the ointment, is those darn nurses and doctors. It appears they’ve decided, quite unreasonably some might argue, to live nowhere near their place of employment, and thus need somewhere to park their automobiles while they’re handing out life giving care.

I can’t see why anyone argues against free NHS car parks.

The habit of selling the ones in the town centres and then building fewer larger ones out on the outskirts does, unfortunately, mean cars are often needed especially for the shift workers.

It would be good to replace it with good public transport and then only free parking if a real need but chances of the public transport is far lower than sorting the parking.

Would an Independent Scotland be able to borrow at a reasonable rate?

I don’t know.  History tells that even countries in severe financial states have been able to borrow money and become very successful so I’m not sure why it should be impossible for Scotland.

Is the UK going to be able to absorb many more Liz Truss style budget announcements before the international markets get completely fed up and the UK becomes a proper basket case country?

Because neo-liberalism in the UK isn’t going anywhere anytime soon so I’m sure we can expect more of the same over the coming years.

I’m looking forward to May 30th when Deputy First Minister Shona Robison presents the Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS).

To quote FAI,

“The 2023 MTFS had a £2.4 billion shortfall in funding built in for 2025-26, and with so much of the £1.5 billion shortfall in 2024-25 being filled by delaying projects, more difficult decisions are likely to be on the way.”

The wilful economic ignorance and whataboutery of the Nats will be laid bare for all to see.

Best you don’t find out how much Sunak borrowed last year then, I’ll help – it was £120bn!

Have I missed you mentioning this, and let’s remember, £120bn for the UK transcribes into circa £12bn for Scotland.

I can’t see why anyone argues against free NHS car parks.

It’s fine, but someone has to pay for it. The trust can either spend millions on expanding the car park, or stick a pay and display machine in. Even if they don’t get the cash from it they’re still better off.

And while I get the point that it’s a cost on people accessing healthcare. It’s untrue to characterize any cost on car driving as unfairly penalizing the worst off.  You’re owning and operating thousands of pounds of machinery, with running costs also in the thousands. £5 might be the straw that breaks the camels back, but it’s a drop in the ocean of the total cost.

In the examples given by people above, driving ~35miles each way is going to cost £30 in fuel, wear and tare, etc. When it comes to cars people are just blind to their actual costs because they’re paid days/weeks/months/years ago and fixate on things like parking.

If you really want to help the poor, spend the millions that a multistory would cost and only benefit the middle-ish classes on public transport that improves it for everyone.  Hospitals are ideal for public transport solutions because they’re generally going to be located in population centers served by the typical radial routes most public transport operates on.

Would an Independent Scotland be able to borrow at a reasonable rate?

If they were proposing to have their own sovereign currency they wouldn’t have to borrow, they could fund things themselves, and they would have to do what any other country with a sovereign currency does to maintain the value of the currency and confidence in it in the international markets by managing inflation and maintaining a decent trade balance. Trouble is the SNP have never proposed doing that, instead they want to either continue using the pound (terrible idea for obvious reasons!), or use the Euro which is not much better.

Of course the complexity of being an independent nation with a sovereign currency is the deals they would have to negotiate with their closest trading partner (the UK) and others (the EU and US mainly). Seeing as currently there is frictionless trade with the UK then removing that would almost certainly result in a drop in GDP, increased inflation and other things just like the UK has experienced post-brexit but on a much larger and more damaging scale.

Seeing as currently there is frictionless trade with the UK then removing that would almost certainly result in a drop in GDP, increased inflation and other things just like the UK has experienced post-brexit but on a much larger and more damaging scale.

Same thing was supposed to happen with Ireland.

It’s not an inevitability.

I don’t know.  History tells that even countries in severe financial states have been able to borrow money and become very successful so I’m not sure why it should be impossible for Scotland.

And here lies the main issue, timescales, how long would Scotland take to not be in dire financial states? My lifetime? My kids lifetime? My possible future grandkids life time? Nobody knows. Will I be able to retire in a future Indy Scotland? Or will I have to work until I die?

It is quite possible that the UK will sort itself out well before Scotland could become successful.

Trouble is the SNP have never proposed doing that, instead they want to either continue using the pound (terrible idea for obvious reasons!), or use the Euro which is not much better

Using the Euro is a pipe dream, would an Indy Scotland be accepted into the EU? The phrase “Rejoin the EU” is nonsense as we were only a member as part of the UK.

I love the fantasy of an Independent Scotland thriving as part of the EU it truly would be wonderful. Sadly I cannot see it being anything like the dream that the SNP try to sell. Just like Farage etc sold Brexit as the land of milk & Honey.

The grifters can just keep riding the gravy bus til ’26. Spaff out some word salad and rinse those expenses. Who’d want this to end?

Top prize being a half final salary, triple locked pension at 39 for the fortunate son.

It is quite possible that the UK will sort itself out well before Scotland could become successful.

And it’s quite possible it won’t and will continue to get worse.

There’s a lot of wishful thinking going on about the incoming Labour government (‘He’s saying this but he really means this’).  The Yes movement is supposed to be the dreamers but I think people saying the UK is going to turn around are really putting all there hopes on a dream.

Changing the course of the UK is like turning a super-tanker.  It’s not happening any time soon and if there are no signs of it starting to turn already then you are in for a long long wait.

There’s no reason to think Scotland can’t be a successful country within a few years, particularly if it begins aligning itself with the EU straight away (note I didn’t say join the EU).

If the UK even begins to sort itself out within the next few years I’d be very surprised.

Both sides are going to give you their best case scenario.  The difference is that in the last referendum the advantage the UK had was that their future was known (even if the assurances turned out to be completely false).

Now all either side can do is engage in speculation as there are no givens anymore (not that there ever were as we found out).

Changing the course of the UK is like turning a super-tanker. It’s not happening any time soon and if there are no signs of it starting to turn already then you are in for a long long wait.

There’s no reason to think Scotland can’t be a successful country within a few years, particularly if it begins aligning itself with the EU straight away (note I didn’t say join the EU).

So you assume that Indy Scotland will be able to change course very quickly and see improvements while the UK is destined to decline? Seems like fantasy thinking to me. The UK is still a massive economy with one of the top global currencies. Don’t let a decade of tory asset stripping fool you into thinking the opposite. Scotland on the other hand is a tiny country who’s economy doesn’t even match many UK regions (see that graph I posted earlier), has very little experience or resources to negotiate the complex trade agreements and other stuff it would need to do, let alone setting up a new currency and administrative structures. And all this is going to be managed and implemented by a party which can’t maintain a coalition on the issues of council tax and gender recognition?

Trouble is the SNP have never proposed doing that, instead they want to either continue using the pound (terrible idea for obvious reasons!), or use the Euro

Support for Independence declines heavily if the Euro is proposed as a currency (down to something like 35% if memory serves) I’d have to google it, and it was a few years back TBF. I think the current plan/thoughts is use Sterling until they can transfer to the Scottish Pound (own currency) isn’t it? The problem with this route is that Scottish Govts (along with everyone else) accepts that Indy Scotland couldn’t initially support its own domestic banking sector given the size of Scotland’s economy, and even with its own currency, part of maintaining central bank credibility would have to entail avoiding taking full fiscal responsibility for supporting its banking system. It just couldn’t manage it for at least a couple of decades, and no one sensible thinks it could. (see the Sustainable Growth Report 2018 and comments after 2021)

Useful example would be Czech Republic and Slovakia, the plan was to share a currency for 6 months, but the lack of a credible plan (cough—Brexit) soon saw a rush of investment out of Slovakia and into the Czech Republic and the formation of two separate currencies in just 6 weeks eventually.  The difference in GDP of the two countries is partly still a reflection of that month and a half in 1993. (Czech Republic is in Schengen and not in the Euro)

I think there’s considerable barriers to re-joining the Eurozone for Indy Scotland, none of them are insurmountable in of themselves, but there’s some hard trade-offs to be negotiated. re opt out of Schengen, and opt out of Euro. Other trade agreements (EEA for example) might mitigate some of them more effectively, so re-joining the Euro’s not the only alternative route for Indy Scotland.

scotroutes Full Member
Some polling suggesting that SNP members prefer Swinney to Forbes, but voters in general the opposite.

From my non-member’s point of view Swinney feels very much like a caretaker leader, and Forbes would signify that the SNP might move away from being a generally left-of-centre/social democrat type party.

The cost of building a multisorey carpark must be trivial compared with the other costs of building running a hospital.

It’s about £8000 per bay just to build it, apparently. 30 seconds Googling found multistorey car parks at hospitals costing between £13m and £150m, but I have no idea why they might vary so much (apart from size obviously). It’s a lot of money!

How to Make Car Parks More Cost Effective

car parks are a terrible use of land, though here in Scotland, we’ve got quite a lot of it

Not very useful having lots of land in Highlands if you want to park your car at a hospital in the densely populated Central Belt, though!

Seems like fantasy thinking to me.

So is the idea that the UK is about to have some sort of renaissance.

This isn’t 10 years of Tory government.  This is the last 45 years we are talking about.  Started with Thatcher (and possibly even before that), continued by Blair, and it’s just been accelerating ever since.

The neo-liberal consensus has been the norm for the UK for my entire life.  An incoming Labour government does not herald the arrival of a new era.  It just means it’s their turn to drive.

The situation in the UK is going to continue to get worse regardless.  Even the Labour supporters aren’t denying it.

What makes you think Scotland would be any different to a neo liberal England? This notion that we are different to down south is nothing more than the Scottish version of English exceptionalism.

Forbes would signify that the SNP might move away from being a generally left-of-centre/social democrat type party.

What evidence is there of that? I mean, I’m not convinced that Freeports are a great idea, and she has certainly supported them in the past, but she’s not currently in Cabinet and they seem to be going ahead anyway.

What makes you think Scotland would be any different to a neo liberal England? This notion that we are different to down south is nothing more than the Scottish version of English exceptionalism.

The results of every election since 1979.

And probably before that.